Panel Quietly Ends Study Of Women, Courts

The Montgomery County Commissioners' Advisory Committee on Women's Issues last night quietly wrapped up its series of public forums on women and the court system.

The committee had planned to take testimony from women on their experience in the courts involving abuse, divorce and custody and women as victims, but no one showed to offer comments.

Committee member Betty Lalley said about 60 people, including law enforcement officials and district justices, gave information at the five previous gatherings, in Lansdale, Norristown, Lower Merion Township, Glenside and Pottstown.

The data will be reviewed and put into a report for the county commissioners, possibly by October. Last year, the committee did a similar study on day care concerns. The committee has much work ahead, but members said they noticed common threads in listening to the testimony.

"Basically what we've been hearing from police is that they do get repeat calls to the same household, and they find that usually it's the woman who has been the victim of abuse," committee member Priscilla Brandon said.

"She is more likely to follow through with pressing charges if she has had some sort of support between the initial call and going for a temporary protection order and then going before the district justice."

Lalley said an underlying cause of much of the abuse was alcohol and drug abuse.

"Another common thread that seems to be running through the testimony is support services are needed desperately to be able to handle these cases," she said. "These women need support services to see their case through and not back down and become afraid to press charges."

Brandon said some women are frustrated by the law.

"They feel some of what the law offers right now is inadequate," Brandon said. "There is a lot of frustration in the limitations to a protection order and what kind of charges they can press and how safe they are from the abuser during an interim period."

Committee member Mildred Shells said police and judges also are frustrated because women sometimes fail to follow through in pressing charges.

"They seem to believe there are three causes for this -- fear, transportation and economics," Shells said.